Gustave Courbet
Rejecting the convention of showing an idealized, statuesque female figure based on classical models, in this work Courbet dropped the trappings of an academic allegory or, indeed, of a picture with a high-minded pretext. His picture of a woman embracing a cascade of water may have been a response to a work by Ingres (check him in our archive!) exhibited in Paris the previous year, that depicts a hyper-idealized nude holding a jar from which water pours as an allusion to spring or a river source.
P.S. There are plenty of Courbet nudes and then there is the most scandalous one: The Origin of the World. See it and read a few comments on it here!